A Clear, Well-Edited Style

“The only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing," says Chief Justice John Roberts.

This sentence grabbed my attention recently when I heard it quoted by Nina Totenberg in her NPR story on the approach of the Supreme Court justices to their written opinions. As people who live by the pen, good clear prose is of paramount importance to “the Supremes” but, surprisingly, they cite some of the greatest writers of fiction as their models.

Justice Ginsberg named Nabokov as a major influence on her writing style, while Justice Breyer mentioned Proust, Stendhal and Montesquieu. Justice Kennedy’s choices fall closer to mine: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Dickens and Trollope – OK, well, maybe not Solzhenitsyn.

Like thousands before me, I consistently recommend Hemingway to colleagues interested in improving their writing style.

Pick up any collection of Papa's short stories and wallow in the clear, spare, declarative sentences of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Hills Like White Elephants, The Killers, The Denunciation and In Another Country. Even when he uses long lists of adjectives or links multiple phrases into a single long paragraph, the surface meaning is crystal clear even if the subtext goes unstated. Two of my favorite authors are Jane Austen and Henry James, but their paragraphs are often so dense as to require multiple readings.

Hemingway honed his craft during his years as a newspaper reporter. He never gave up journalism in spite of his success as a novelist, returning to it throughout his career. As a young reporter, he adopted four rules for writing that served him well his whole life – and which are still ones to emulate. The Copyblogger website has a Hemingwayesque explanation of these rules:

1) Use short sentences
2) Use short first paragraphs
3) Use vigorous English
4) Be positive, not negative

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compared his writing philosophy to that of an iceberg, where only a small percentage is visible above water. This “iceberg principle” or theory of omission is best demonstrated in an apocryphal tale that Hemingway bet his Algonquin lunch companions he could create a complete story in only six words. He won the bet with “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Woody Allen’s delightful new film, Midnight in Paris, plays Hemingway’s highly idiosyncratic style for laughs. It does sound funny when spoken aloud, but on the page, it’s a thing of beauty. I recently re-read A Farewell to Arms after many years and sighed over even the battle descriptions.

Reading good literature isn’t always enough to improve your writing style. You may need to read grammar explanations and should definitely practice through written exercises. (Hey, it worked in grade school!). Here are a couple of my favorite resources for “build and reinforce” lessons and practice exercises, both widely available online as well as in large brick-and-mortar bookstores:

• English Grammar Workbook for Dummies (author Geraldine Woods)
• Barron’s Grammar in Plain English (4^th ed., authors Harriet Diamond and Phyllis Dutwin)

In an effort to free up bookshelf space, I plan to give away that copy of A Farewell to Arms – any takers?

Photo credits: the author and the State Library of New South Wales via flickr.